Jerry's Middle Finger

Tribute to Jerry Garcia Band

jam band · rock · blues

Jerry's Middle Finger is a Los Angeles-based tribute band formed in 2015 that plays the repertoire of the Jerry Garcia Band rather than the Grateful Dead. Garcia ran the JGB as a side project from the mid-1970s until his death in 1995, using it for material the Dead rarely touched, and the band's sets follow that catalog across blues, reggae, Motown, gospel and soul covers, Garcia originals such as Deal and Cats Under the Stars, and rarities from Garcia's work with organist Merl Saunders. The lineup is built around lead guitarist and singer Garrett Deloian, a veteran of the blues touring circuit, and drummer and singer Rodney Newman, who founded the group; Son Vo plays bass, Jon Gold plays keys and organ, and Halina Janusz and Lisa Malsberger handle the gospel-inflected vocals that were central to the Garcia Band's sound. Gold previously played with Danny Elfman in the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, Janusz and Vo have worked together in Mother Jones, and Malsberger has sung in Southern California jam bands for decades. The band's name refers to the finger Garcia lost in a childhood accident. The group started in Los Angeles speakeasies and beach dive bars, in part to avoid competing with the long-running local Dead tribute Cubensis, and has worked outward to clubs and concert halls across California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Colorado and on to the Midwest and East Coast, including the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, the Troubadour in Los Angeles, Ardmore Music Hall outside Philadelphia and Garcia's at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. Newman has described the aim as reproducing how Garcia himself approached the material, and notes that audiences routinely span original Deadheads and their grandchildren.

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